Bronte Media

The EETimes reports of the progress of OLPC and calls the 162,000 laptops sold (mostly from the grass roots online program “give one and get one”) a failure.

The give one, get one program was put live on November 12 and lasted until December 31. Or roughly 48 days.

That’s a little more than 3k a day.

Compare this to the ‘greatest consumer electronics product ever launched’, the iPhone, whose initial sales were around 9,000 a day when launched.

To me, the sales are a fantastic success. The large scale government sales are a total failure. So what does Negroponte and co do? They shut down the give one, get one program and continue along with their large scale biz dev ways. Unbelievable.

The news that the lead designer for the screen in the OLPC laptop is starting her own for-profit company is great news. It means that component will decrease in cost as other partners buy it. Competition is also a great thing as the OLPC’s laptop will be forced to lower its cost.

The aim here is the kids get laptops, not Negroponte getting the fame, or Intel or Microsoft. All the latter are completely irrelevant. In fact, Negroponte should be booted into some sort of PR spokeperson role and they should get someone with a clue to run the OLPC project.

Despite all this, I am excited with anticipation with my order for two of the machines, one for me and one for some kid.